A Change In The Name
by The Ivy Among Roses
Summary: He has always been Sherlock... always... Until now. Multiple chapters, continuing story.
1. Chapter 1

Until now he had always been Sherlock.

John had never called him anything else, no matter how angry or sad or happy or whatever. Always Sherlock, a constant a thing that never varied in its consistency. Sherlock, the world's only consulting detective.

"Holmes… You're alive."

Thick arms wrapped around his torso, engulfing his skinny frame in a firm and anguished hug, much stronger then Sherlock would have expected.

The graveyard was silent but for these two, who lay in the plane of emotion at the returning of the missing half.

"Yes John. I'm back."

Three years away, on missions and cases for obscure people and after strange men, and now, yes, he was back, back in London.

John breathed deeply, letting the smell of his friend engulf him. The smell of his shampoo, of soot, of smoke and of London. Of acid and death and hospitals and cleaners and god, every smell John had ever smelled in the world lay on that black trench coat, in that blue scarf, on his suit and dress shirt. The Afghan desert, his old flat, 221B, blood, dust, mud, spray paint, Chinese pots, a taxi, a pool, dirt and rabbits, John's old dog, Harry, Mrs. Hudson's cookies, St. Bart's hospital and Dewer's Hollow.

Holmes smelled like a dead man should: Like the world he left behind.

"Holmes… God I've missed you Holmes…"

Sherlock, the detective wanted to cry out, I'm Sherlock John, I'm your Sherlock! But something deep inside him, something deep and aching told him he deserved this, if not a swift punch to the face. I deserve whatever he has to give me, he thought, I left him. He assigned this feeling he name Guilt, and vowed never to delete the memory of its feeling.

It is my punishment, he thought to himself as the Dr. began to cry.

"Holmes…" whispered the Doctor, "Holmes…"

"Yes John. I'm back."

He had been called Holmes ever since his return, ever since he landed from his fall.

A reminder of the pain he caused, of the scars he left and of the people he abandoned.

Sherlock Holmes.

But just Holmes for now…


	2. Chapter 2

It sounded strange to him. _Holmes… _ Like some kind of foreign word.

His last name was always preceded by his first, no matter what context or situation.

"_I would like to introduce you to my younger brother, Sherlock Holmes." _Mycroft would say.

"_Mr. Sherlock Holmes is here to ask you some questions." _ Lestrade might bellow.

Always Sherlock. The break before the storm of the final syllables of his last name, that gave it, what Sherlock described in private as, the Ring. The classic Ring that made his names his.

He had once hated his name. He had loathed the nicknames and jeers he had attracted in school. The bullying his foolish and pompous name had later earned him in high school, though less creative, was much worse. The locker doors bent and crumbled with his bony spine as he had been pushed towards the metal doors, books that often fell to the floor, stumbles and trips at the feet of his peers, theft of items and 43 times he received… The dreaded Swirly…

True that these frequent attacks made him:

Quick on his feet.

Immune to many forms of verbal abuse.

Allowed him to hold his breath for several minutes at a time

Taught him, very quickly, when the punch is best not thrown.

Though despite all these 'added bonuses' he had felt hollow in his high school years. Empty in the purest respect of the word.

Sherlock had been alone. Having no friends to call his own, nor a pet (Mycroft had been deathly allergic to everything) not even his own brother to play with, as the age difference burned holes in their relationship.

This loneliness and the added humiliation of having a golden boy brother had made him rather combative as a child.

At the age of 16, when the name calling, tripping, and theft reached an all time high, Sherlock began bringing his anger home.

He had used his foul name against his parents in teenage arguments, as any teenager with a name like Sherlock would; trying to blackmail them or make them feel guilty for whatever atrocity had been committed, even pleaded once with his mother to have his name changed and transfer schools. Looking back on it, Sherlock had erased it from his memory.

Despite using it against his mother and father many a time in petty arguments, he secretly loved his name.

But now, as one half of it had been stripped away, leaving the lonely half exposed and naked, leaving it empty and without further meaning then what it stated by itself, he was left half again.

As alone as he had been in high school, and his childhood years.

My name is Sherlock, John! It's me, your Sherlock! He wanted to scream.

"Holmes… Oh my god Holmes… You left me so alone…"

And now, as the two men stood alone in the cemetery, the Dr. cried.

Three empty, lonely, heart- breaking years, of thoughts and heart aches and medication and therapist visits and a new job and a new girlfriend and believing so hard in the truth behind his friend's Fall, it finally ended with this: Betrayal.

He… had… been… alive?

Sherlock recoiled like a snake as John's fist connected with his nose.

"You bastard… THREE YEARS!"

"I know John… I'm sorry… I did it to keep you saf-"

John took three angry steps forward, a firmly set finger pointing at Sherlock's quickly beating heart.

"Do NOT! DO NOT SAY TO KEEP ME SAFE! If you say you left to keep me safe I will personally kill you and make sure that is your real body under that dirt!" John's face was becoming red hot, his breathing ragged and quick and his hands shaking.

Sherlock found it rather easy to perform a deduction…

What he deduced, was that he had done many things wrong.

"John, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen like this." John rolled his eyes and raised a fist.

"Piss off will you Holmes? Leave me alone."

The Dr. stalked off through the graves, leaving behind the white roses he had brought to place on Sherlock's fake grave.

Inside that coffin, lay a memory. A memory that had once walked and laughed and smiled fake smiles, and rarely slept, and never once had a headache, and hated eating vanilla ice cream and liked jaguars and wore purple and read textbooks aloud to himself.

A memory John wished he could have back…

A/N Hi there…. None too fond of this one myself…. Oh well…. THANKS VERY MUCH TO PROTHOE WHO REVIEWED!


	3. Chapter 3

_Three years…_

John grabbed the skull and threw it against the wall, where it broke into pieces and stared up at him with dead eyes.

_Three looong and hard years…_

John smashed the mirror that hung over the fire place, watched the glass tumble to the ground like shining tears.

_Three years trying to pay off the rent for this flat…_

John moved to the kitchen, grabbing vials and tossing them to the ground, their multicolored contents dull after spending three years in a box, untouched, unmoved.

_Three years trying to find him, three years crying, three years alone and sad and damn… damn him… that selfish little bastard…_

He grabbed the violin from the box beneath the table and, brought it over his head, prepared to bring it down hard on the table, hopefully smashing it and everything it was worth. But something made him stop.

Thin spidery writing, equations on the wooden surface, burns and stains and scars the wood bore. Of a time before John, during John, and the words _I believe in you _of the time of only John.

Dr. Watson put the violin down, turned the kettle on, and sat.

_+6 TS AD _

John fingered the mad writing of his detective, of his ghost.

-75 QMM

John laughed throatily at his guesses of what the detective meant.

=JW

John cried.

Long into the night he cried, until the kettle boiled over, and he stumbled into Sherlock's room, just the way his ghost had left it, curled up into the sheets that ceased to smell of Sherlock, and cried.

And he could see his depression perfectly in the shattered darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

In his hotel room, Sherlock did not sleep.

Because 1.3 kilometers away, John was no doubt awake as well.

Under the sheets that smelled of cheap fabric softener, Sherlock thought.

_Lipstick on lower neck, near collarbone, sexually active obviously… eye sockets sunken, indicating lack of sleep for variable reasons… Clothing is new, though well used indicating a new job with more ground work, probably medical, though more likely stemming away from his original practice to gain the same-_

"Adrenaline rush he got with me…" whispered Sherlock to the darkness of his room, feeling a little smug about how John 'got off' on having a sociopath as a friend.

_Shoes well worn and traces of heavy mud, more walking, less cab taking… Possibly looking for something as he looked around in a paranoid air or fashion, maybe expecting something…_

"Or someone…" He calls to the moon.

_Hair grayer, from stress, most definitely not old age, the man is only thirty six for God's sake. _

Sherlock sighed.

1.3 kilometers away John Watson was most definitely awake, thinking about him, possibly in hatred.

The guilt inside his heart ached.

"I didn't mean to." He calls to John, hoping beyond all hope that the Dr. can hear him.

And now Sherlock could see the guilt perfectly in the weighing night.


	5. Chapter 5

3 years since the last time he had seen Holmes. 3 years. And, to make matters worse, the last time he had seen the man he was jumping off a damn building…

John sighed and consulted his tea, as it swirled in his mug, milk clouding inside and floating like smoke on the wind. He saw his face rippling in the herbal drink.

John sniffed. God Holmes… He though, Wha've you done to me?

He stood up stiffly, turned his phone off and returned to bed.

Something caught his eye on the mantelpiece, something that had not been there before.

A can of yellow spray paint, multiplied in the cracked glass of the mirror.

Agony ripped through John's chest, as memories flew to the fore front of his mind's eye, Sherlock being him, Chinese tea pots, black lotus flowers, bodies galore and 1 15. Chip 'n Pin machines, Moriarty, buying the damn milk and coming home to an arrogant flat mate, crimes to be solved and god… Complete unaltered, happiness…

These were ghosts of times. Times before this and then, before the boredom and depression and herbal tea and therapy and… this.

Ghosts of happiness.

Ghosts of unreachable things.

John crumpled again, falling to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably into the carpet as its musty smell clogged his nose further, soft and luxurious under his swollen face.

John cried for want of real ghosts.

He cried for the loss.

He cried for the calling loneliness that beckoned him ever closer into its cold embrace …

"Holmes…" he whispered into the carpet.


	6. Chapter 6

John's phone buzzed early in the morning, and he woke grumpily to check it, cursing loudly at the time, before realizing that he had the day off.

_Good morning John. I trust you had an exciting evening-MH_

Myyyyyycroft. Mycroft never texted John unless he wanted information on his brother or a case, and since John no longer had cases, he assumed it was about the first option.

_Yes, I did thank you for reminding me-JW_

_How would you say you took it?-MH_

_He's alive so I'll say I took it well.-JW_

_I daresay you took it better than I expected you to.-MH_

_YOU KNEW,DIDN'T YOU!-JW_

_I did. I helped him with it as well.-MH_

_You Holmes boys have extreme tendencies to be dramatic!-JW_

_You must understand that he did this for the safety of the people he cares about.-MH_

_You know what Mycroft? Sod off.-JW_

Being fully aware that he had just told the high standing official of the British government to 'sod off' John took a shower and got dressed and set to work cleaning up his beautiful mess from last night.

His phone pinged again.

_Good morning-SH_

John turned his phone to silent and turned the kettle on, praying beyond all else that maybe, just maybe, the whole damn world would just shut up…


	7. Chapter 7

_Hello –SH_

…

_Hello?-SH_

…

_Stop texting me -JW_

_No -SH_

_Get away from me -JW_

_I can see you on that bench-JW_

_I wanted to make sure you were OK –SH_

_I don't care. Get away from me –JW_

_No –SH_

_Is that you following me?-JW_

_Yes –SH_

_If you don't stop following me this instant, I will call Lestrade –JW_

_No you won't –SH_

_I'm getting in this cab now. Leave me alone –JW_

_Have fun –SH_

_Don't tell me what to do- JW_

…

…

…

_IS THAT YOU IN THE CAB BEHIND ME? –JW_

_Yes –SH_

_I will text Mycroft to get you to stop this, he'll be on my side and you know it –JW_

_You wouldn't dare… -SH_

_I am –JW_

_XxX_

_Make your little prick of a brother stop following me –JW_

_XxX_

_Sherlock, Dr. Watson has just requested you stop following him –MH_

_I'm worried I did something bad Mycroft –SH_

_You did do something bad Sherlock. You deceived him-MH_

_Is this sentiment Mycroft?-SH_

_Yes. John cares. And why he ever cared about you has eluded me for years. You had a wonderful life going and you allowed it to fall to pieces with John in the middle of the rubble –MH_

_Why are you being so cruel Mycroft? –SH_

_Why do you care so much, if you were willing to leave him like this in the first place? –MH_

…

…

_I'm lost without my blogger… -SH_


	8. Chapter 8

John had become very close with Molly since The Fall. After John got out of therapy, he was instructed to form strong relationships with people who had known Sherlock that John himself liked. So he tried being friends with Molly.

Sure she wasn't the kind of person that he would take out to the pub for a pint or two, nor was she the kind of person he would wanted to date. He just wanted to, you know… Be her friend.

He had started helping her with morgue-like things, because they were friends. Every now and then he would come in and see if he couldn't deduce a thing or two about a body, anything note worthy that he could tell Lestrade or the New Scotland Yard forensic investigators.

After that, when the anniversary of Sherlock's death had come round, John and Molly went up to the roof. They had stood there, looking down as Sherlock would have when he jumped down to his death, and spoke aloud a few fond(ish) memories.

"I can remember the first time I saw him," Molly had begun that day, "The day before he came to the morgue for actual planned work. I was getting out of my cab, and there he was, outside my door, high as a flag, positively screaming at me to take him to the latest body. Course I didn't want to, he was an addict, I was alone and he looked much stronger than me, so I ended up locking him out and calling The Yard. Well of course they hauled him away. But the next day he turned up rather stoned and asked to see the body again, and course this time I let him. But I'll never forget how different he was when the sun came up."

John had laughed at this because it was indeed true.

In the early days of meeting Sherlock, John had found the man more pleasant and tolerable, and found that at night, like some kind of ghostly bat, he would hide away and see a world he never told John about.

Sherlock had been content to sit for hours some days, seeing his world, coiled and ready to find a release of some kind, but where ever he looked, he never found the rest he craved. He seldom slept, his working and tiring mind too busy to allow for any sort of rest.

Other days Sherlock would simply go for a walk and come back in three days, lie down in Hyde Park and forget to come home.

John had always been slightly envious of his flat mate and the world he saw behind those icy eyes. The eyes that chose not to show emotions, the eyes that peered and flitted around like humming birds, never at rest even in dreams.

He longed to see everything Sherlock saw, to see the demons people hid behind fake faces, the murders they hid behind their backs and the secrets they swallowed in lumpy throats.

Maybe then he would have been able to see that Molly of all people had been hiding her knowledge from him.

So now, as he stood across from her in the morgue, as they had done many a time before this, she confessed to him her secret.

"I helped him die." She fidgeted, taking a deep breath and looking at the ceiling, "Well no, I helped him fake his death. John I'm really sorry but he made me promise not to te-"

But alas, she could not fit in an apology, as John sighed and walked away, allowing the door to close behind him loudly, praying that God never let him have another friend as long as he lived, because it seemed they liked to betray him in so many times that they only left his broken heart a little more tattered and dying then it had been when they first met…

And as he returned home in a slow moving cab, he imagined life with the Holmes he now knew.

But nothing could ever match the Sherlock he had loved.

Even a Holmes that shared his sight.

_John. I'm REALLY SORRY!-MH_

John just stared out the window into the rain, and saw another world through the glittering drops, imagining the tears of thousands, in the swirling smoke-like clouds.


	9. Chapter 9

_Hello –SH_

_Goodbye –JW _

_John, I'm sorry –SH_

_No you aren't –JW_

_Yes I am –SH_

_Well I don't believe you –JW_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_STOP TEXTING ME! –JW_

_Isn't there any way I can make it up to you? –SH_

_Fine. You want me to forgive you so badly? Say 'I'm sorry' Once for every day you were 'dead'. Do that and I won't be nearly as mad-JW_

(Now, when John made this statement, he thought beyond all doubt that Sherlock would not do it. Which is why he came up with such a lucrative number. Honestly, Sherlock would have to say 'I'm sorry' 1194 times. But little did John know that Sherlock was desperate.)

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry – SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry – SH_

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry – SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry – SH _

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

This continued late into the night, well past 5 o'clock in the morning, and the constant pinging of his mobile enraged John so much that he turned it to silent and hid it in Sherlock's bedroom which was a whole level lower. He also secretly prayed that Sherlock would mess up in his grammar so John could fault him and make him start over, but alas, at 6:23, when 769 sorrys had been texted, there was no let up in the consistency of the messages sent per minute nor the grammatical references.

John began to wonder if he should accept his ex flat mate's 1194 apologies, but then decided as he sat facing the armchair where Holmes once sat, that he should.

Not for Holmes or himself. But for Holmes' distal phalanx on his thumbs, as he was certain that this much texting would begin to wear away the bone.

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH_

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH _

They continued well into the second day, though there was a rather long pause in between messages which John assumed was when Sherlock ate or slept, though he found both options extremely unlikely.

Sherlock rarely slept.

Even more rarely was the ingestion of food.

_I'm sorry –SH _

_I'm sorry –SH_

And then, at 2:32 AM on a Thursday John checked his phone.

_You have _1194_ new messages._

(siiiiiiiigh)

"Let the awkward begin."


	10. Chapter 10

A/N Warning! A wee bit of Sailor Language!

XxX

"You made _fucking _business cards with our names on them?" John kept his voice deadly calm and cold as the taller of the two men looked at him in mild surprise and interest, as though he was an interesting television program.

"Why yes, of course."

John looked at the card that had fallen out of Sherlock's coat onto the floor of St. Barts, where Sherlock had 'conveniently' shown up to see a new body while Molly tried to apologize to John for deceiving him for the last three years.

The card was small and white, with swooping sinewy writing spelling out the name 'Sherlock Holmes: The World's Only Consulting Detective. And his assistant John H. Watson'.

At first when it had fluttered to the floor John had just thought it was an old one that his flat mate had kept around, but no, it smelled new, it looked new and it was a different design then the last set had been. And (gasp!) there was a… deerstalker in the corner. There had not been a deerstalker in the corner of the last bunch…

Is he trying to make me kill him? John thought as he looked at the little piece of paper. Is he honestly trying to make me murder him? First he starts showing up at the flat _without asking_, and leaving his stupid stuffed jaguar around, fixing his skull and buying milk and… this.

"You didn't think it would be good to fucking ask if I was going to get involved in your little… impulse adventures?" John began shaking, feeling the heat rising behind his eyes as Holmes just looked at him.

"Well of course. Was I wrong to overlook such a mediocre detail?" Sherlock just looked so surprised and taken aback at the question, as though he hadn't even considered another option.

"Yeah, yeah you were Holmes. Turning up around the flat is one thing because it is now _my flat, _but simply assuming I want my old 'job' back is completely another." Molly looked very scared as John took a step towards Holmes, eyes set in rage.

Sherlock just looked at him, empty, emotionless.

"I went a long time without you, Holmes. A long time."

And then, after crumpling the business card and letting it float to the ground, he walked away.


	11. Chapter 11

The silence was thick in the morgue. Bodies were silent in their nooks, instruments gleaming and shining almost sinisterly, still on the stark white tables and islands without hands to play with them.

Molly looked at Sherlock, who looked at the floor. It was two whole minutes after John had left that Sherlock sat down, his head in his hands breathing heavily, his lungs shuddering.

"Hey… You okay?" Molly whispered sitting down next to him and rubbing his sharp spine. Sherlock shook his head, his palms crushing his eyes.

"Hey, calm down. Deep breaths…"

"Is this sentiment? Is this the affliction normal people are cursed with?" Sherlock sobbed to the floor.

Molly looked up and around the lab. "Well, no, not really. People all deal with sentiment in different ways. You don't really like to show your feelings so you bottle them up inside and then sometimes they just, pop the cork. John though," Molly stooped down and picked up the fallen business card and smoothing out on the island behind her, that was covered with microscopes and slides of obscure particles, sinks and test tubes, "He shows his emotions. He cares."

Sherlock looked at her with teary eyes, tears already clinging to his eyelashes. "What do I do Molly?" His voice was thick with mucus, and in some ways much more human then she herself had ever seen him.

"Well… if I were you… I would keep my distance for a little while. Be civil to him, and other people, but don't act like nothing happened. You are not his friend just yet."

He began shaking his leg nervously. "Then what am I?" He asked coolly.

Molly shook her head sadly. "I don't know." She smiled sadly and handed back the now smoothed out business card.

They were very close together.

She could see every tear that clung to his eyelashes, every element of sheen in his dark curls. Something old fluttered in Molly's chest, something she hadn't felt for a very long time. Something warm, and soft and gentle.

Love.

She wanted him. She wanted to bridge the distance between them with her lips and press up against him and feel his heartbeat, be the only one in the world again that knew his secret (other than Mycroft of course) knew that that heart had never _ever_ been still.

But he sniffed and looked away from her breaking the trance he had on her heart.

"Thank you Molly."

And then, in the swish of his coat, the click of his shoes, he was gone.

And Molly was alone…


	12. Chapter 12

_Hey, uh, Sherlock? –JW_

…

_I'm really sorry –JW _

…

_Sherlock I'm sorry about the way I acted, back there at the morgue –JW_

…

_I understand if you don't want to talk to me –JW_

…

_I shouldn't have reacted that way –JW_

…

_I was being an angry dick –JW_

…

_And I am truly sorry –JW_

…

_I know you apologized enough –JW_

…

_And you were really trying to be kind –JW_

…

_And you were just trying to make things right between us –JW_

…

_But maybe, before we become flat mates or co-workers again, we could try and be friends? –JW_

…

_If that's okay with you of course –JW_

…

_But if you just decide I'm a total prick and don't want to be around me anymore that's… fine too –JW_

…

_You have no idea what being alone is like –JW_

…

_Well… maybe you do… but that's not the point –JW_

_You don't know what being alone without _you_ is like –JW_

_I was really lonely –JW_

_And I had to build myself a life without you there –JW_

_And I got used to that and then it turned out you weren't dead –JW_

_And then everything was weird and I was really really angry and that wasn't right. –JW_

_So I'm sorry for being so angry –JW_

_I just don't know what to do –JW _

…

_Can we be friends again? –JW_

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

_I should like to be friends very much John –SH _

_Great… That's great… -JW _

_Angelo's 8:30? No candle. Just friends. Having dinner. –SH_

_We could catch up! –JW_

_Yes we could John. –SH_

_I'll be there –JW_

_As will I –SH_

**A/N Oh yeeeeeaaah… You think it's over…. Oh yeah…. But it's not…. ;) **


	13. Chapter 13

There were many books about breakups, broken friendships, split up parents, angry children, depression, and PTSD. Books filled with emotional remedies, of moving on, of forgetting. All were used to help the reader overcome something.

No one had ever written a book about what happens when a consulting detective jumps off a building in order to save his friends from certain death, after his only option for survival kills himself. No one really knew how to overcome that.

No one had ever written the book about what happens afterwards, when the grave for the body was dug, the flowers wilted and the dust began to collect, nor what happens after the last words and texts and phone calls are finished. People never truly overcome grief, do they?

No one had ever written a book about what to do when the detective comes back, with an apology on his tongue, nor is it written whatever happens to the best friend and his reaction. People never really understood the meaning of betrayal…

Then there was always the fairy tale ending, where they both become friends again, and go gallivanting off into the distance on matching horses, a fair maiden on each arm and riches galore awaiting on the next horizon. There are many books that follow that premise, you'll find them anywhere.

But there is always the plot twist in this fabled fairy tale, the wringing of the story's neck as everything you know is turned upside down, the death was real, the friends are shattered, and the villain never dies…

There is always a point in the brief calm, that calm before the storm, when the water is glassy and smooth… People are lulled into a false calm, where the villain sleeps, the remedy discovered, the nightmares cease, the headache dulls…

But then the villain always wakes…

So here we are.

Here enter the villain…


	14. Chapter 14

I.O.U

John reached with trembling fingers for his phone, which had fallen from his shaking hand onto the floor.

I.O.U

He dialed the number he knew by heart.

I.O.U

He spoke with a rasping voice, sweat crawling down his brow with strained and untamable panic.

I.O.U

"Sherlock…" He whispered in a quaking and quivering voice.

I.O.U

John took a shuddering breath through his nose…

I.O.U

"He's back."


	15. Chapter 15

I.O.U

It was written on his windows like some kind of ludicrous joke, as though for someone else it may not mean as much as it did...

The letters were thrown around the cabinets, written in sickly red paint, dripping, still wet.

I.O.U

There was only one person, their fingers dripping with red blood, their mind full of evil things, tongue flicking with threats that were really promises, one person that could have done this.

I.O.U

John looked around, saw the letters on his walls, his fridge, his table, his windows, his mirrors, his doors, his laptop, the cabinets, the bathtub, the kettle, and knew without a single doubt who had done this to his flat.

Moriarty.

The man, the hated man that had killed his best friend, that had faked his own death, that had killed and killed and killed, poisoned, burned, ripped and tore and shredded.

Realization hit him like a rampaging bull: Moriarty had been _here_. He had been here to paint all this. Why? What else had he done? How long ago? He knew why he had done this though, it was obvious…

He was going to kill Sherlock again…


	16. Chapter 16

Jim wanted to kill me…

The words flew around Sherlock's brain like little humming birds, flitting around and bouncing off the walls of his skull, their wing beats drowning out the constant droning tones of the city streets he was roaming. Little raindrops pattered onto his face, the cloudy sky above, threatening lightning and to reignite the seemingly omnipresent rains that often fell from this London sky.

Parts of him missed the airplanes and clear skies from his travels, and the trains that had reminded him of the Tube and his home here in London, the places where rain was infrequent, unlike these streets and this air. Other parts of him missed the clear crisp air and the sense of freedom a good mountain top provided, or the music they played in that LA coffee shop he'd visited to talk with the informant he had become good friends with and hadn't been in contact with since his return. But deep inside him, during his travels and his quest, he had longed to see shiny wet streets, the windshield wipers of cabs blurring, the bobbing of umbrellas on the footpaths he so often frequented.

Jim wanted to kill me…

This was truth. But Jim had in the end killed himself, and effectively killed Sherlock, but now the two were alive again, and Sherlock began to question how life would go from here on out.

Things would never truly be the same. Lestrade was not even aware he was alive, and the fact that he was still a wanted criminal in the kidnapping of two children of a high standing official in the British Government, so working with the Yard would have to wait until a later date.

It came as a subtle shock to him to know that that was the only real blow his career had suffered , which he assumed was good because that meant that even after a great shock, life was going back to the relative level of normal it had been before.

But, the fact remained that the emperor of the criminal kingdom was still alive… And the mysterious messages John had described all over 221B could be taken as a threat…

Or a reminder?

A reminder from Jim of his place, that he was still a puppet in a master plan, that he was part of a great play and he was the lead, it was his song the people would hear, but he had never written the words. Jim could be reminding him of the way things had gone before, that he was still being owed a Fall…

So now as lightning unfolded around the sky tickling buildings, Sherlock knew that the final problem was far from over, and that since he was back…

His death was back as well…

_**A/N HI der… Me again… This chapter was just a look into what our dear Sherlock thinks about Moriarty being back. In chapters to come you can expect some Moriarty scenes, Lestrade's thoughts, Mrs. Hudson's, some OC characters from Sherlock's travels finding their way back to the detective, a few injuries, some Mycroft, who knows maybe a death or a kidnapping ( just to tease)... I just wanted to inform you beautiful people of where I see this fanfiction going, where it might take you, and that when it's over, you'll see a big 'the end' at the bottom. DFTBA please leave a review on the way out! Peace sells…**_


	17. Chapter 17

"So what are we going to do about this?"

"I don't think I follow you John."

"How… could one of the smartest men in the world not follow me about something so completely obvious?"

"Well obviously it's not obvious or else I would have understood."

"Don't make me say it."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to John…"

"Moriarty… is back… and he threatened me…"

"Wrong."

"What?"

"It was a reminder John. I would have expected your intelligence to accumulate in my absence but apparently not."

"How could you possibly know it was a reminder? You didn't even see the damn thing!"

"John. He doesn't want me dead for if he did, I would have been dead already. I spent three years roaming the globe trying to take him down but he never struck a blow. He wants to play again; he knows that I'm the only thing worth playing with so he wants me alive. The I. all over your flat are obviously to remind me that the game is afoot."

"Oh… But… Isn't Moriarty dead?"

"He… Yesssss… I believe so…"

"Believe so?"

"Yes. Yes he is dead."

"…"

"…"

"JOHN!"

"Jesus Holmes…""

"What if it wasn't Moriarty at all?!"


	18. Chapter 18

John stared at the detective.

"Then who could it be?"

Sherlock crinkled his nose at the spicy tuna roll squished between his chopsticks, dropping it and pushing towards his friend, who took it gratefully. Sherlock looked around, and listened to the static of life around him. Sherlock stopped and listened for a moment, hearing everything.

_Couple in the back, not together, discussing custody of a child, his child, not hers, but he abuses his… daughter judging by the nail polish on his neck. Waitress tucking the chopsticks into her sleeve, too poor to buy her own, poverty for three years, homeless for 3 days. Man, leaving, tall, brutish, nearly strangled his wife, rampant drug addiction, prison for spousal abuse for… 2 years, out on good behavior. _

The noise never stopped…

"I don't know John. Moriarty and his followers were the only ones who knew about the promise he made me. Unless he told someone with no direct relationship or link to him, then it makes no sense that someone else would know about the I. O. U."

John made a face.

"Maybe you just didn't get them all."

Sherlock scoffed and stared out the window, watching Chinatown rush by him.

_A drug dealer, a single mother of 2, lawyer lost, a war hero, a therapist, a bartender, a grocery store franchise owner, a museum curator, an aspiring author… _

Why couldn't he be blind like the rest?

"Who knows John? Maybe I did…"


	19. Chapter 19

He didn't want to be inside anymore. The Hawaii view was not worth a single dime if he could never feel the seashore breeze through his hair. Nothing was worth it if he wasn't allowed to enjoy the feelings of freedom.

Everything felt like it was being seen through a tunnel, like he was in a distant and dark land and everything he touched was in the real world. He'd lost all sanity and sense about what the real world was after the 9th week though, so really it didn't matter what was real and what was dream or fantasy, because god, what matters in this hateful world?

He had no cell phone, no iPod, nothing. Chess could not be played by one's self, the books he'd read a hundred times cover to cover already sang their phrases in his ears. How many paintings of the same sea could you paint before every brushstroke could be done blindfolded? If it was possible, he had done it. And what of cooking? Every recipe he tried molded and soiled, uneaten. He wasn't hungry anymore.

He'd tried having a cat, but it ran away three days ago, displeased with the raunchy stench he had adopted. The only point of a shower was for what he was about to do, right, now.

The slash was a beautiful shade of red on his pale skin. You seldom got a tan with a roof over your head, no matter how sunny it was here. Blood started pouring down the drain, just like water.

But no… Something was missing… Aha! If he was going to die he wanted to do it with favorite book open to his favorite page, his dead finger on his favorite line. He IS all about the drama…

He stumbled from the bathroom to the library, but collapsed halfway there, too weak to make it to the third bookshelf, on the third ledge, third from the right. So he decided he would write his favorite line on the wall in his own blood, because that's what he had at his disposal.

And so, when he was done with his writing and done with life all together, he lay down on the white and luxurious carpet, and listened to the crashing waves in the distance, muffled by the many walls of his prison.

He began to fade at 3:12…

But someone came home at 3:14, yelling a hefty hello throughout the quiet house, worried when they got no answer. Maybe he's in the library, they thought.

But when they went for the library, they found him there in the hallway, a gruesome phrase above his head in his own blood, the same blood that pooled on the floor around him.

The living man gasped, because he knew the line…

_Why is a raven like a writing desk? –The Hatter_


	20. Chapter 20

He does this so often, and I feel so bad for him.

This will be the third time I've come home to find him bleeding into the carpet, gone into the land he calls heaven, even though we both know he is destined for a hotter place of residence when his body's sung its last. I pick him up in my arms, and call for the medic, because I know he's not quite dead yet.

"One day Jim, you are really going to kill yourself, and when you burn you are going to ask yourself why you did it… then you'll kick the devil off his throne and run Hell itself, won't you?"

I sigh, falling deep into the chair as I hear the medic crawling up the stairs.

Do you know the real Jim?

No I don't suppose you would, because it's a secret he keeps close to his heart.

Jim… His name, beyond anything else is the only window you will get to glimpse his heart, his coal black heart that beats and aches and rips itself to shreds.

Jim is psychotic, self destructive to an almost pathological extent, self absorbed, intelligent and utterly clueless at the same time, he is coarse, angry, and beyond anything else:

Jim is tortured.

My name is Sebastian Moran.

And I know the real Jim Moriarty.


End file.
